scholarly journals Opera History, the Travel Edition

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Jonathan Hicks
Keyword(s):  
Paris Opera ◽  
Specific Performance ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Grand Opera

This book has been in my bag for a long time and, on reflection, I am glad that I have read it gradually. When the central premise is so simple – Grand Opera Outside Paris is, indeed, about Grand Opera outside Paris – the payback comes in the detail of individual chapters and the slow emergence of a Europe-wide survey of encounter and exchange. The volume's editor, Jens Hesselager, provides an erudite and generous introduction, beginning with the familiar difficulty of defining grand opera and the importance of attending to specific performance contexts. In the first instances, of course, this meant the Paris Opéra, and Hesselager draws our attention to Sarah Hibberd's observation that the coherence of the genre was initially established ‘more through the licensing requirements of [this] institution than by [any] specific dramatic content’ (1). From here, the introduction gently encourages us to look outward.

Gilbert-Louis Duprez and Gustave Roger in the composition of Meyerbeer's Le Prophète

1996 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
Human Resources ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Professional Status ◽  
Collaborative Effort ◽  
Economic Uncertainty ◽  
Paris Opera ◽  
Political Upheaval ◽  
French Grand Opera ◽  
Grand Opera ◽  
Creative Team

It is well known that mounting large-scale productions at the Paris Opéra during the 1830s and 1840s was a highly collaborative effort. The nature of so-called ‘grand opera’ demanded that composer, librettist and stage designer work closely together for the sake of a creation larger than the sum of its parts. Above them loomed the directeur, who laboured to ensure that his creative team had the means to produce their æuvres both in materials and human resources, and to guarantee that the Opéra made a profit from the finished products. A fifth collaborator, the singer, is not often cited as such in the literature, but in many ways wielded the greatest power in the creation of Parisian operatic works. By the 1830s, European singers had achieved professional status, and a singing artist of high calibre could find the Opéra a perfect venue in which to flex muscle. During the Opera's ‘golden age’, a bourgeois public, tired of political upheaval and economic uncertainty, found escape in the new ‘romanticè fare of the Opéra, and elevated the singers who strode its boards to what today is called ‘star status’. The Opéra became a temple and its singers, adored gods and goddesses. A beloved singer could – and did – ensure an opera's success simply by appearing in it, or doom it to failure by refusing to appear. With such power a singer could easily hold a new opera for ransom, forcing the composer and librettist to revise, excise or otherwise alter the work to some self-serving end. To secure a place for their stage works at the Opéra and to guarantee a public triumph, therefore, it is not surprising that composers such as Donizetti, and especially Meyerbeer, the leading composer of French grand opera, composed or revised their operas for particular singers.

scholarly journals The Ukrainian Star of World Ballet

2019 ◽  
pp. 794-798
Author(s):  
Dmytro Vernyhor
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Original Paintings ◽  
Paris Opera ◽  
Artistic Vision ◽  
Visual Artist ◽  
Main Plot ◽  
World Class ◽  
First Time ◽  
Grand Opera

The article deals with the life and career path of Serge Lifar, a Ukrainian world-class dancer, choreographer, theorist of choreography, historian and reformer of the 20thcentury ballet, Honorary President of the UNESCO International Dance Council. Serge Lifar was a prolific artist, choreographer and director of the Paris Opéra Ballet, one of the most preeminent ballet companies in Western Europe. Attention is drawn to the fact that pedagogical activity constituted a significant part of Lifar’s work. In 1947, he founded the French Academy of Dance, from 1955 he taught his-tory and theory of dance at Sorbonne University, having developed his own system of ballet dancers’ training and authored more than 20 works on ballet. In the same year, he was recognized as the best dancer and choreographer in France and was awarded the ‘Golden Shoe’. In 1957, he became the founder and rector of the Paris University of Dance. The author emphasizes that Lifar’s creative heritage is huge. He choreographed more than 200 ballets and wrote 25 books on dance theory. Serge Lifar trained 11 ballet stars. Serge Lifar’s style, which he called choreographic neoromanticism, determined the ways of development of the European ballet art of the second half of the 20th century. At the age of 65, Lifar showed his talent as a visual artist. His heritage includes more than a hundred original paintings and drawings, the main plot of which is ballet, dance, and movement. In 1972–1975, exhibitions of his works were held in Cannes, Paris, Monte Carlo and Venice. His yet another passion was books. It all began with Serhii Diahiliev’s personal archive, which included a collection of theatrical paintings, scenery and a library. Lifar bought it from the French government for a one year’s salary at the Grand Opera. In the USSR, Lifar’s name was concealed. Only in 1961, did he and his wife visit it for the first time as the Soviet authorities did not allow him to stage any ballet in the USSR. He always felt he was Ukrainian and ardently promoted the history and culture of his people. In honour of the outstanding countryman, the Serge Lifar International Ballet Competition and the festival ‘Serge Lifar de La dance’ have been held since 1994 and 1995, accordingly. Keywords: cultural diplomacy, art of artistic vision of choreography, Serge Lifar International Ballet Competition.

200kv superconducting cryo electron microscope

1987 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 642-643
Author(s):  
M. Iwatsuki ◽  
Y. Kokubo ◽  
Y. Harada ◽  
J. Lehman
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscope ◽  
Structure Analysis ◽  
Organic Materials ◽  
Strong Interactions ◽  
Specimen Preparation ◽  
Great Effort ◽  
Electron Microscopic ◽  
Crystal Fields ◽  
Special Skill ◽  
Long Time

In recent years, the electron microscope has been significantly improved in resolution and we can obtain routinely atomic-level high resolution images without any special skill. With this improvement, the structure analysis of organic materials has become one of the interesting targets in the biological and polymer crystal fields.Up to now, X-ray structure analysis has been mainly used for such materials. With this method, however, great effort and a long time are required for specimen preparation because of the need for larger crystals. This method can analyze average crystal structure but is insufficient for interpreting it on the atomic or molecular level. The electron microscopic method for organic materials has not only the advantage of specimen preparation but also the capability of providing various information from extremely small specimen regions, using strong interactions between electrons and the substance. On the other hand, however, this strong interaction has a big disadvantage in high radiation damage.

A Stationary Solution of High-Energy Electron Reflection (HEER) for An Arbitrary Surface

1990 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 374-375
Author(s):  
YIQUN MA
Keyword(s):  
Stationary Solution ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Bloch Wave ◽  
Dynamical Theory ◽  
High Energy Electron ◽  
Bulk Materials ◽  
Periodic Surface ◽  
Electron Transmission ◽  
Electron Reflection ◽  
Long Time

For a long time, the development of dynamical theory for HEER has been stagnated for several reasons. Although the Bloch wave method is powerful for the understanding of physical insights of electron diffraction, particularly electron transmission diffraction, it is not readily available for the simulation of various surface imperfection in electron reflection diffraction since it is basically a method for bulk materials and perfect surface. When the multislice method due to Cowley & Moodie is used for electron reflection, the “edge effects” stand firmly in the way of reaching a stationary solution for HEER. The multislice method due to Maksym & Beeby is valid only for an 2-D periodic surface.Now, a method for solving stationary solution of HEER for an arbitrary surface is available, which is called the Edge Patching method in Multislice-Only mode (the EPMO method). The analytical basis for this method can be attributed to two important characters of HEER: 1) 2-D dependence of the wave fields and 2) the Picard iteractionlike character of multislice calculation due to Cowley and Moodie in the Bragg case.

Direct imaging of charge transfer

1996 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 680-681
Author(s):  
Yimei Zhu ◽  
J. Tafto
Keyword(s):  
Charge Transfer ◽  
Electron Diffraction ◽  
Scattering Amplitude ◽  
High Temperature Superconductors ◽  
Charge Carriers ◽  
Image Charge ◽  
Net Charge ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Electron Holes ◽  
First Time

The electron holes confined to the CuO2-plane are the charge carriers in high-temperature superconductors, and thus, the distribution of charge plays a key role in determining their superconducting properties. While it has been known for a long time that in principle, electron diffraction at low angles is very sensitive to charge transfer, we, for the first time, show that under a proper TEM imaging condition, it is possible to directly image charge in crystals with a large unit cell. We apply this new way of studying charge distribution to the technologically important Bi2Sr2Ca1Cu2O8+δ superconductors.Charged particles interact with the electrostatic potential, and thus, for small scattering angles, the incident particle sees a nuclei that is screened by the electron cloud. Hence, the scattering amplitude mainly is determined by the net charge of the ion. Comparing with the high Z neutral Bi atom, we note that the scattering amplitude of the hole or an electron is larger at small scattering angles. This is in stark contrast to the displacements which contribute negligibly to the electron diffraction pattern at small angles because of the short g-vectors.

Microstructural characterization of plasma-processed Ti-Al metal matrix composites

1989 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 552-553
Author(s):  
M. G. Burke ◽  
M. N. Gungor ◽  
M. A. Burke
Keyword(s):  
High Temperature ◽  
Titanium Aluminide ◽  
Plasma Processing ◽  
Microstructural Characterization ◽  
High Temperature Strength ◽  
Matrix Composites ◽  
Intermetallic Matrix ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Strength And Stiffness ◽  
Intermetallic Matrix Composites

Intermetallic matrix composites are candidates for ultrahigh temperature service when light weight and high temperature strength and stiffness are required. Recent efforts to produce intermetallic matrix composites have focused on the titanium aluminide (TiAl) system with various ceramic reinforcements. In order to optimize the composition and processing of these composites it is necessary to evaluate the range of structures that can be produced in these materials and to identify the characteristics of the optimum structures. Normally, TiAl materials are difficult to process and, thus, examination of a suitable range of structures would not be feasible. However, plasma processing offers a novel method for producing composites from difficult to process component materials. By melting one or more of the component materials in a plasma and controlling deposition onto a cooled substrate, a range of structures can be produced and the method is highly suited to examining experimental composite systems. Moreover, because plasma processing involves rapid melting and very rapid cooling can be induced in the deposited composite, it is expected that processing method can avoid some of the problems, such as interfacial degradation, that are associated with the relatively long time, high temperature exposures that are induced by conventional processing methods.

Gum arabic helps prepare better lacey polymer films for specimen support in electron microscopy

1993 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 240-241
Author(s):  
Shailesh R. Sheth ◽  
Jayesh R. Bellare
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
Polymer Films ◽  
Gum Arabic ◽  
Complete Removal ◽  
Ammonium Bromide ◽  
Release Agent ◽  
Astigmatism Correction ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Micro Holes ◽  
Cetyl Trimethyl Ammonium

Specimen support and astigmatism correction in Electron Microscopy are at least two areas in which lacey polymer films find extensive applications. Although their preparation has been studied for a very long time, present techniques still suffer from incomplete release of the film from its substrate and presence of a large number of pseudo holes in the film. Our method ensures complete removal of the entire lacey film from the substrate and fewer pseudo holes by pre-treating the substrate with Gum Arabic, which acts as a film release agent.The method is based on the classical condensation technique for preparing lacey films which is essentially deposition of minute water or ice droplets on the substrate and laying the polymer film over it, so that micro holes are formed corresponding to the droplets. A microscope glass slide (the substrate) is immersed in 2.0% (w/v) aq. CTAB (cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide)-0.22% (w/v) aq.

On-line image readout in CTEM

1994 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 400-401
Author(s):  
K.-H. Herrmann ◽  
W. D. Rau ◽  
R. Sikeler
Keyword(s):  
Primary Electron ◽  
Digital Information ◽  
Electron Hole ◽  
Detection Technology ◽  
Long Time ◽  
On Line ◽  
Electron Image ◽  
Optical Transfer ◽  
Detection Quantum Efficiency ◽  
Technical Solutions

Quantitative recording of electron patterns and their rapid conversion into digital information is an outstanding goal which the photoplate fails to solve satisfactorily. For a long time, LLL-TV cameras have been used for EM adjustment but due to their inferior pixel number they were never a real alternative to the photoplate. This situation has changed with the availability of scientific grade slow-scan charged coupled devices (CCD) with pixel numbers exceeding 106, photometric accuracy and, by Peltier cooling, both excellent storage and noise figures previously inaccessible in image detection technology. Again the electron image is converted into a photon image fed to the CCD by some light optical transfer link. Subsequently, some technical solutions are discussed using the detection quantum efficiency (DQE), resolution, pixel number and exposure range as figures of merit.A key quantity is the number of electron-hole pairs released in the CCD sensor by a single primary electron (PE) which can be estimated from the energy deposit ΔE in the scintillator,

New polarized-light microscope for fast and orientation independent measurement of birefringent fine structure

1993 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 82-83
Author(s):  
Rudolf Oldenbourg
Keyword(s):  
Light Microscope ◽  
Polarized Light ◽  
Video Camera ◽  
Limited Range ◽  
Image Point ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Optical Modulators ◽  
Anisotropic Structures ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Computer Assisted Image

The polarized light microscope has the unique potential to measure submicroscopic molecular arrangements dynamically and non-destructively in living cells and other specimens. With the traditional pol-scope, however, single images display only those anisotropic structures that have a limited range of orientations with respect to the polarization axes of the microscope. Furthermore, rapid measurements are restricted to a single image point or single area that exhibits uniform birefringence or other form of optical anisotropy, while measurements comparing several image points take an inordinately long time.We are developing a new kind of polarized light microscope which combines speed and high resolution in its measurement of the specimen anisotropy, irrespective of its orientation. The design of the new pol-scope is based on the traditional polarized light microscope with two essential modifications: circular polarizers replace linear polarizers and two electro-optical modulators replace the traditional compensator. A video camera and computer assisted image analysis provide measurements of specimen anisotropy in rapid succession for all points of the image comprising the field of view.

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